A perfect blend of Intelligence and Stupidity

All Hallow’s Eve, Hallow E’en, Halloween, Day of the Dead, Samhain. By whatever name it has been called, this special night preceding All Hallows day (November 1st) has been considered for centuries as one of the most magical nights of the year. A night of power, when the veil that separates our world from the Otherworld is at its thinnest.

As ubiquitous as Halloween celebrations are throughout the world, few of us know that the true origin of Halloween is a ceremony of honoring our ancestors and the day of the dead. A time when the veils between the worlds were thinner, and so many could “see” the other side of life. A time in the year when the spiritual and material worlds touched for a moment, and a greater potential exists for magical creation.

Ancient rites

In ancient times, this day was a special and honored day of the year.

In the Celtic calendar, it was one of the most important days of the year, representing a mid point in the year, Samhain, or “summer’s end”. Occuring opposite the great Spring Festival of May Day, or Beltain, this day represented the turning point of the year, the eve of the new year which begins with the onset of the dark phase of the year.

And while celebrated by the Celts, the origin of this day has connections to other cultures as well, such as Egypt, and in Mexico as Dia de la Muerta, or the day of the dead.

The Celts believed that the normal laws of space and time were held in abeyance during this time, allowing a special window where the spirit world could intermingle with the living. It was a night when the dead could cross the veils and return to the land of the living to celebrate with their family, or clan. As such, the great burial mounds of Ireland were lit up with torches lining the walls, so the spirits of the dead could find their way.

Jack-o-lanterns

Out of this ancient tradition comes one of our most famous icons of the holiday: the Jack-o-lantern. Originating from Irish folkfore, the Jack-o-lantern was used as a light for the lost soul of Jack, a notorious trickster, stuck between worlds. Jack is said to have tricked the devil into a truck of a tree and by carving an image of a cross in the tree’s trunk, he trapped the devil there. His pranks denied him access to Heaven, and having angered the devil also to Hell, so Jack was a lost soul, trapped between worlds. As a consolation, the devil gave him a sole ember to light his way through the darkness between worlds.

Originally in Ireland turnips were carved out and candles placed inside as lanterns lit to help guide Jack’s lost spirit back home. Hence the term: Jack-o-lanterns. Later, when immigrants came to the new world, pumpkins were more readily available, and so the carved pumpkins carrying a lit candle served the same function.

Festival for the dead

As the Church began to take hold in Europe the ancient Pagan rituals were co-opted into festivals of the Church. While the Church could not support a general feast for all the dead, it created a festival for the blessed dead, all those hallowed so, All Hallow’s, was transformed into All Saints and All Souls day.

Today, we have lost the significance of this most significant time of year which in modern times has turned into a candy fest with kids dressing up as action hereos.

Many cultures have ceremonies to honor their dead. In so doing, they complete a cycle of birth and death, and keep in line with a harmony and order of the universe, at time when we enter into the cycle of darkness for the upcoming year.

As you light your candles this year, keep in mind the true potency of this time, one of magical connections to the other side of life, and a time to remember those who have passed before us. A time to send our love and gratitude to them to light their way back home.

IS HALLOWEEN just a delightful holiday for dressing up, parties and candy? Or is it really a time when restless spirits are allowed to roam more freely among the living? Is the veil that separates our world from the world of the dead more transparent at this time of year? People report paranormal phenomena at all times of the year, of course. But there’s something about Halloween night that heightens the senses and, perhaps, connects us more readily to forces unexplained. Consider these seven chilling true stories of Halloween frights.

IS HALLOWEEN just a delightful holiday for dressing up, parties and candy? Or is it really a time when restless spirits are allowed to roam more freely among the living? Is the veil that separates our world from the world of the dead more transparent at this time of year? People report paranormal phenomena at all times of the year, of course. But there’s something about Halloween night that heightens the senses and, perhaps, connects us more readily to forces unexplained. Consider these seven chilling true stories of Halloween frights.

Evil in the Attic

Attics can be scary places… maybe even more so around Halloween time. Take it from Eve, who as a young girl ventured into her attic alone in search of costumes. “My mum and sister went to my neighbor’s house, leaving me alone in the house,” says Eve. “It was about 4:30 and already beginning to get dark. I took that opportunity to sneak upstairs into the attic to try on some Halloween stuff. I quickly ran up the steps, knowing that if my mum came back and caught me, I would be in deep trouble. Although all the windows were shut, I felt a cold breeze pass through me, but I thought nothing of it at first because I had had no past experiences of paranormal phenomena.”

Eve rummaged through the bag of Halloween costumes and pulled out a witch’s hat, which she tried on for size. Almost immediately, some unseen force hit the hat. She dropped the bag and quickly turned around, but found nothing against which she could have knocked the hat. “As I bent down to pick up the bag, I saw the handle to the bathroom door turn and the door rapidly opened,” Eve says. “I walked cautiously into the bathroom, wondering what had caused the door to open in such a way. I had a feeling that there was another presence in the room. I looked out of the window to check if my mother and sister were still outside, and sure enough they were. Just as I was about to turn away form the window, I saw the reflection of the cupboard door sliding open. I turned around hastily to try and see what was causing these incidents, but I wasn’t quick enough to catch whatever it was.”

Terrified, Eve threw the bag back into the cardboard box and ran downstairs and out into the front garden, waiting anxiously for her mum to return home. “That night, I had a nightmare about what might have followed if I had stayed up there any longer,” Eve says. “Evil, gleaming red eyes stared at me from the bathroom cupboard, locking me in the toilet and causing complete havoc all around the house. Several unexplainable things have happened up there since then, including ‘self-breaking’ objects.”

What was it, beside her own equilibrium, that Eve disturbed in that attic that evening?

The Phantom’s Car

It was Halloween evening 1995 when Pamela and her brother were heading home on a country road near Greenbelt, Maryland. At the time, I was not licensed to drive, so as usual my brother was the driver. As it was darkening, Pamela reckons that they were moving at about 25-30 mph on the two-lane road, with her brother at the wheel.

Suddenly appearing behind them, and approaching quickly, was a black vehicle with two large, round and glaringly bright headlights. Almost as quickly, the car was beside them on the left, as if trying to pass. But, Pamela says, it seemed that the old black car was floating rather than riding the pavement. “This old car was in the path of head-on traffic,” Pamela recalls. “It seemed like those other cars kept going without interruption. My brother and I looked over inside the car and there were four young teenagers, two young men and two young ladies.”

Strangely, they looked to be dressed in farm clothing from the 1930s or 1940s – and they all looked as white as ghosts. The young lady in the front passenger turned her head slowly to Pamela and her brother and smiled, then turned back. The two people in the back seat just stared. Then, inexplicably, the car floated past them… and vanished into thin air.

But that’s not the end of this ghost story. “In 1997, my brother and I were on the same road, around the same time, again coming home,” Pamela says, “and the same spirits appeared and repeated the same scene. In 1998, my brother was alone driving home on this road and the same ghosts appeared again, repeating the same scenario.

“Maybe these teens were going out on Halloween and got into some terrible accident. They are clearly stuck on this road driving! God rest their souls!”

The Voice in Blood Cemetery

At Halloween, many people test their bravery by venturing into dark cemeteries. Sarah and her husband, who had always been fascinated by the unknown, decided to do just that on the Halloween night of 2002. It was an experience, she says, that changed her life.

“We chose Blood Cemetery in Mukwanago, Wisconsin,” Sarah tells us. “I think it goes by a different name now, but the Blood family was the first African American family in that town, and they are buried in that cemetery near a statue of a book on a pillar.”

Sarah’s husband used to live in that town and often heard tales of supernatural events occurring in the cemetery. This got Sarah’s juices flowing, so armed with a camera, two flashlights and an audio recording device, they headed into the tiny cemetery.

“We headed for the Blood monument first,” she says. “After waiting around in vain for the Blood family to show themselves, we did a little walking around. We were about 48 feet away from the Blood monument when something made me turn around and look back at it. I saw what appeared to be a giant blue orb. It was about the size and shape of a human head, and about that far off the ground. I didn’t look long enough to make out a face, so I cannot tell you if it was truly a face or not.”

That’s all it took for Sarah and her husband to run out of the cemetery at a speed they never imagined they could attain. Although the ground was dry, they both stumbled and tripped as they ran. Her husband said he felt as though he was being sucked into the ground, but Sarah swore it felt more like hands grabbing at her ankles and pants. At the outer edge of the cemetery, they caught their breath and gathered their courage for one more short walk around the gravestones with the audio recorder and camera. “I tried to open myself up a little and I was lured to a random area of the cemetery,” says Sarah.

“We stood there for about 10 seconds, until I felt the sudden urge to run. I said, ‘Oh my God! We have to go!’ I started running with all my might. My husband followed. I turned and I snapped a picture of the spot we were standing. When we got back to the car, we listened to the audio. This is what we heard: the shuffling of our feet in the leaves and then it stops. ‘Grrr…. Get out!’”

“The voice was obviously not human, but not quite animal,” Sarah is certain. “It was a demon. The picture showed a whole lot of nothing… except for two little red eyes.”

The Hooded Figure

High schoolers and even college students seem to love Halloween as much as little kids do. It’s an opportunity to challenge their fears of the unknown and to indulge in scary pranks. Chris will never forget the Halloween of 1981, when he was enrolled at a college in his hometown.

Chris and five or six of his friends decided to check out a small cemetery at the edge of campus. A rusty, worn, chain-link fence encircled the few graves of past college faculty and their relatives. “It wasn’t long before I felt… ‘something’,” Chris remembers. “A few minutes later, I heard the crunch and rhythm of footsteps shuffling through the leaves on the ground. Some of the others heard it, too, and we all looked in the direction of the footsteps, and when we didn’t see anyone, we assumed it was another friend trying to scare us.”

They all laughed it off, at first, but the sound of the footsteps continued. Every couple of minutes, Chris would look down the length of the fence. He squinted his eyes, trying to find the prankster in the dark, but he couldn’t see anyone, even as the crunch of leaves got louder… and closer.

Then, to the left of his vision, coming from the dark edge of the woods, Chris saw it. “Vague in shape, it was definitely cloaked in black head to foot,” Chris says. “It seemed to move in spurts of speed, and then, as though time fast-forwarded, it would be ahead of my speed of sight – closer to me than before until it stopped at the corner post of the fence.”

The figure changed shape from a thin, tall form as it turned to its left and faced the students. It was cloaked and hooded, although Chris could make out no arms nor eyes to look at for familiarity. There was no shape of feet, even though the hem of its cloak floated inches above the leaves and grass. Scared, Chris wheeled away from the whole affair, and without saying a word to his friends, ran uphill to the first lighted building he could find.

“I felt someone running beside me,” he says. “I was relieved when I saw one of my friends. We stopped running and asked each other what we saw, and we both said the same words, saw the same vision. Since that night, I have seen my friend often. Except for one occasion a couple of years after that Halloween, we have never talked about what we saw that night.”

Ouija Attacks Dogs

Halloween often inspires people to break out their Ouija boards, even if the “talking board” has been sitting gathering dust on a shelf the rest of the year. Bea and her friends Ingrid, Anna, Lara and May decided to experiment with the board one Halloween night some years ago in Bea’s large house in Australia.

Bea’s parents were away on business, and her brother and sister were visiting an uncle in South Australia, so she and her friends had the house to themselves for a sleepover. Naturally, sleep was the last thing on their minds. Anna, who was really into séances and the paranormal, suggested playing with the board, which she brought with her.

“I have two Pomeranian dogs, Muffy (tan) and Shadow (black),” says Bea, “and my friend Ingrid has a white Pomeranian called Hayley. “Muffy, Shadow and Hayley, along with Anna’s dog, Ernie and Lara’s two dogs, Archie and Rosie, were all in the backyard and we hadn’t heard a peep out of them for about an hour.”

Upstairs in Bea’s bedroom, the girls arranged themselves in a circle with Anna’s Ouija board in the center. They each placed two fingers on the planchette. Anna started by asking the board, “Is anybody there?” The board moved to YES. Then Ingrid asked, “Who?” and the board spelled out: GAIL.

“Who are you?” another girls asked. Again the board spelled out only: GAIL.

“More detail,” another requested. But the board only replied: GAIL.

“What’s going to happen tonight?” Bea asked. DOGS, the board spelled.

“What are you going to do to our dogs?” YOU’LL SEE, replied the Ouija.

Bea pushed the board aside and the girls just sat there staring at each other. The silence was soon broken by a piercing whimper from the backyard. The five girls jumped up and raced down the stairs, fearing for their dogs. “We flung the back door open and raced out,” says Bea. “We soon discovered Lara’s dog Archie whimpering in a corner. We didn’t even take a second glance at any of them. We simply picked up our dogs (all of them were small ones) and ran them inside up to my room. Once we had them upstairs, we fussed around inspecting every inch of them. Lara screamed and we rushed over to see her holding Archie, who had a burn mark on his left side in the shape of a pentagram in a circle (the symbol for witchcraft).

“We spent the whole night with the dogs in our arms and vowed to burn the board the next morning.”

Suicide Ghost

“This experience is very dear to me, though it grows blurry with time,” Satori tells us. “Memories fade like breath upon a mirror… especially ones that were dim to begin with. But this is what I remember, I do not know exactly what I saw, but I do know it changed me.”

Satori’s experience took place at an all-girl’s Catholic college she attended where, it was rumored, there was a particular bathroom that was haunted. The girls frequently talked about the icy air in this room, and of hearing and seeing strange things, and a feeling of being watched. Satori dismissed them as tall tales.

One Halloween, however, Satori and her friend decided to go and “talk” to this spirit. They went into one of the bathroom stalls that had a bathtub, because it was said to be the center of the haunting energy. “My friend got into the tub and started feeling around,” Satori says. “I did too… and I felt the most amazing feeling – a tingling, like electric current, coming from the walls and the faucets. I was stunned but, oddly enough, not afraid. Elated was more the word.

“We got out of the tub and that’s when I saw it: the pale image of a young girl with dark hair and deep, sad eyes. She was wearing some kind of slip. Her wrists were cut and her blood was dripping down the drain. She looked like me! Again, I did not feel fear, only sympathy.

“ ‘I think she put the razor in the soap dish,’ I said to my friend. ‘I know,’ she answered. Suddenly, I felt this presence, this tingling warm feeling inside… like the way your arms prickle before a storm. I said to it, ‘Come out. Don’t be afraid.’ And the feeling got stronger. Then I said, ‘It’s okay. We understand. You can go back.’ And the feeling seemed to move upward in my body until it disappeared. Then there was no more energy.”

When the girls stood to leave, however, Satori was stricken with an overwhelming feeling of sadness and loneliness. “I knew she did not want us to leave,” Satori says. “I said to her gently, ‘I’m so sorry, but we can’t help you. You need to go back now.’ Then I felt the sadness lift and the room grew lighter. I felt her leave. She never returned and no one spoke of her again. But I will never forget her. She taught me a lesson: compassion heals all wounds, whether alive or dead.”

The enormous interest in these creatures prompts the question: Are vampires real?

INTEREST IN THE vampire mythos is at an all-time high. The recent enthusiasm for this blood-sucking immortal began perhaps with the highly popular Anne Rice novel, Interview with the Vampire published in 1976, and which she followed up with several more books about the vampire world she created. Movies and television capitalized on this popularity with such offerings as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Lost Boys, Francis Ford Coppola’s film version of Dracula, Underworld, and the Tom Cruise-Brad Pitt film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire.

The genre is more popular than ever thanks to TV’s True Blood and Vampire Diaries, and especially the enormous success of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series of novels, which also are getting the Hollywood treatment.

When a phenomenon like this creeps into our mass consciousness – you can barely turn around without bumping into vampire-related media – some people begin to think it’s real. Or they want it to be real because they so enjoy the fantasy. So what about it? Are there real vampires?

THE SUPERNATURAL VAMPIRE

The question of whether vampires are real or not depends on the definition. If by vampire we mean the supernatural creature who is practically immortal, has fangs through which he or she can suck blood, has an aversion to sunlight, can shapeshift into other creatures, fears garlic and crosses, and can even fly… then we have to say no, such a creature does not exist. At least there’s no good evidence that it exists. Such a creature is a fabrication of novels, TV shows and movies.

If we dispense with the supernatural attributes, however, there are people who call themselves vampires of one kind or another.

LIFESTYLE VAMPIRES

Largely due to the influence of vampires in the media, there is now a subculture of vampirism, the members of which seek to mimic the lifestyle of their fictional heroes (or antiheroes). There is some overlap with the Goth community, both of which seem to seek empowerment in the dark, mysterious side of things. The lifestyle vampires typically dress in black and other accouterments of the “vampire aesthetic” and favor a goth music genre. According to one website, these lifestylers take this on “not just as something to do at clubs, but as part of their total lifestyle, and who form alternative extended families modeled on the covens, clans, etc. found in some vampire fiction and role-playing games.”

Lifestyle vampires make no claims of supernatural powers. And it would be unfair to dismiss them as people who just like to play at Halloween year-round. They take their lifestyle quite seriously as it fulfills for them some inner, even spiritual need.

SANGUINE VAMPIRES

The sanguine (meaning bloody or blood-red) vampires may belong to the lifestyle groups mentioned above, but take the fantasy one step further by actually drinking human blood. They typically will not drink a glass of the stuff as one would a glass of wine, for example, but usually will add a few drops to some other liquid for drinking. On occasion, a sanguine vampire will feed directly from a volunteer or “donor” by making a small cut and sucking up a small trickle of blood.

Some of these sanguine vampires claim an actual need to ingest human blood. The human body does not digest blood very well, and there seems to be no physiological condition that would account for such a need. If the craving is present, then, it is almost certainly psychological in nature or simply a choice.

PSYCHIC VAMPIRES

Psychic vampires, some of whom might also adopt the vampire lifestyle described above, claim that they have a need to feed off the energy of other people. According to The Psychic Vampire Resource and Support Pages, pranic vampires, as they are sometimes called, are people “who by reason of a condition of their spirit, need to obtain vital energy from outside sources. They are unable to generate their own energy, and often times don’t have the best capacity to store the energy they do have.” The website even has a section of psychic “feeding techniques.”

Again, in the spirit of “keeping it real,” we have to question whether this is a genuine phenomenon. By the same token, we’ve all been around people who seem to drain the energy from a room when they enter, and they get off on it. It could be argued that the effect is strictly psychological… but then that’s why they call it psychic vampirism.

THE PSYCHOPATHIC VAMPIRE

If drinking human blood qualifies one as being a vampire, then several serial killers deserve the label. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Peter Kürten, known as “The Vampire of Düsseldorf,” committed as many as nine murders and seven attempted murders. He achieved sexual arousal with the sight of his victims’ blood and was said to have even ingested it. Richard Trenton Chase was dubbed “The Vampire of Sacramento” after he murdered six people and drank their blood.

Obviously, these “vampires” are criminally insane. Ironically, however, their murderous compulsions and ghoulish practices make them more like the demonic vampires of literary tradition than the other “vampires” described here.

Baguio City – Diplomat Hotel – This was a
Seminary during the early 1900, world war 2 came and several priest and
nuns were killed some of them beheaded by japanese occupying forces.
This was converted into a hotel after the war. In it self it was pretty
eerie, big rooms with to king size beds bibles at the side tables and
the rooms are dimly lit. Clerks, bell hops, and hotel guest, complain
of wailing even during day time, and when night comes, apparitions of
headless priest roam the corridors, some even say that they see ghost
carrying their heads on a platter. Haunting s are not limited inside
the hotel for when you stroll outside the compound you would see
neighboring houses with crosses painted on their doors and windows, and
are kept shut when darkness falls.

Baguio City – Philippine
Military Academy – Several ghosts haunt
this place. Sometimes late at night a platoon can be heard marching in
the parade grounds. A ghost of a cadet dressed in parade uniform and
left in one of the lockers still appears. A ghost of a priest who was
beheaded during the Japanese occupation period appears here as well as
the ghost of a white lady.

Baguio City – Teacher’s
Camp – It is believed that this was once a
battlefield of the native citizens there. Ghosts of native warriors, as
well as spirits that are still restless, are reportedly seen there.

Corregidor – Hospital
Ruins, and bunkers – Sounds of activities can be
heard within the area of the hospital ruins, which were destroyed
during WW2, sounds such as footsteps, and rumblings of normal hospital
activities. Around the bunker area, sounds of ghostly moans can be
heard, assorted noises as well.

Davao City – Juna
Subdivision – Champaca Street – ghosts caught on
video and seen by the naked eye.

Diliman Teacher’s Village – Claret
School qc – Many stories were spread since 97
the first was the high school student who jumped from the 5th floor to
the ground that appears when the area is silent and the 2nd is the
headless priest. That school is said to be an old cemetery.

Espana – Manila –
University of Santo Tomas – Ghosts and wailing
voices are heard from the 3rd and 2nd floars of UST Main
Building. Since this is the oldest building in the oldest
Catholic university in the Philippines, it is undoubted that some
Spanish friars and Filipino souls were tormented and killed in
this place.

Iloilo City – Central
Philippine University (CPU) – This school was
founded by American Missionaries and during WW2 many of the
missionaries were executed by the Japanese.

Iloilo City – Central
Philippine University (CPU) – Football Field – A female ghost is said to be seen jogging on the
tracks early in the morning. She is said to join you while you are
jogging and strikes up a conversation and will disappear after she
passes a certain spot. Several students, teachers, and the school
president have reported jogging with her.

Iloilo City – Central
Philippine University (CPU) – Ruby Hall – A
school janitor as well as students and teachers have reported that wile
passing by the building at night after it is locked down, one
classrooms lights would always be turned on while everything else is
shut off. They have reported strange imp like creatures running around
the classroom. This is one of the most haunted halls in the university.
This is a medical hall and it houses several cadavers for the use of
the med. students. From cold spots and moving furniture, to sometimes
being pushed or tripped while walking.

Iloilo City – Central
Philippine University (CPU) – Valentine Hall – The ghost of a dead female student haunts the women’s
restroom, several female students since the early 70’s have reported
seeing her. The ghost is usually seen during noon. Classes have been
interrupted because of screams from the girls. According to the
students she appears behind them while they are looking in the mirror
while doing their make up or fixing their hair. The ghost of Rev.
Valentine who was beheaded can be seen on certain nights standing at
the entrance of the hall dedicated to him. The ghost is reported to be
headless.

Katipunan – Quezon City –
Balete Drive – Balete Drive is a residential
area famous for the apparition of a white lady. It is told that there
was a teenage girl who was raped by a cab driver in the 50s in that
area. It is possible that the lady of Balete is seeking revenge. Never
walk alone at night in eerie Balete Drive.

Katipunan – Quezon City –
Miriam College – the land where the school sits
on now used stand a hospital and a market which burned down before
becoming a school. Students have told me that you can see a nun walking
in front of the mausoleum where it is said that the nuns who ran the
school during its beginning are buried.

Katipunan – Quezon City –
Miriam College – 1st Floor Cafeteria – There
has been sightings of a bodiless (only head and feet) woman appearing
in the stall of women’s bathroom the 1st floor cafeteria in the grade
school building.

Katipunan – Quezon City –
Miriam College – Caritas Building – on
the 2nd floor ladies comfort room of the caritas building a nun haunts
the bathroom and is said to peak over the stall while girls are using
the bathroom. A face can be seen when you look above the door, but
there are no feet when you look below the door

Katipunan – Quezon City –
Miriam College – CSC – there was also
this “manananggal” that lives there. It used to be a student that was
hit by a car inside the campus. Rumors are that every school fair,
someone faints.

Katipunan – Quezon City –
Miriam College – High School AV Room – There
There has also been sightings of an evil entity in the AV room in the
high school building…a student was said to be getting ready in that
room for an evening performance when she saw, in the mirror, a face
with an evil look smiling at her.

Katipunan – Quezon City –
Miriam College – Immaculate Heart Of Mary Hall – One witness claims that when they where in Grade 3
encountered that a spirit scratched her ankle when they were doing the
99 steps. And then, when she came back to the corridor, she was crying.
And then she told us all to cover our nametags and never shout our name
until class time.

Katipunan – Quezon City –
Miriam College – Miriam Of Nazareth Hall – in the Grade 2 bathroom, there was this girl who was
washing her hands, and there was a demon that came out of the toilet
bowl. The girl prayed hard but nothing happened.

Katipunan – Quezon City –
University of the Philippines Diliman – Ghosts
sightings at the College of Education, College of Science Library,
Palma Hall, College of Mass Communication, UP Main Library.

Makati City – Asian
Institute of Management – A Professor died of a
heart attack a few years ago in one of lecture rooms on the third floor
of the main building. There are voices; shadows and cold spots can be
felt in that specific room where the professor died. His car remains in
the faculty parking area even until now.

Makati City – International
School Manila (Former Campus) – Fine Arts Theatre – One year, one of the high school students was acting
as the stage manager for the Community Play. The theatre was already
uncomfortable for her when it was dark, but one night, on her way out,
she was leaving through the front doors of the auditorium, something
she couldn’t see followed her up the aisle. Very aggressive, very
menacing and very scary. She ran out the door just in time as they
slammed shut behind her. Suffice it to say, she never stayed in the
theater alone again.

Manila – Arellano high
school – there are spirits mostly seen by the
students and teachers because when a building in front of the school
collapsed by an earthquake many years ago, the remains were placed in
the said school. so the spirits were staying in that place.

Manila – De La Salle
University – A chapel located on the 2nd floor
of the De La Salle University -main Building is haunted by several
ghosts said to be the victims of a mass killing during World War
II. They start haunting the place when evening has crept in and
the area is already silent. Sightings of headless monks and
screams of people are being heard there during rainy nights.

Manila – Film Center – When the construction of Film Center at the Cultural
Center of the Philippines complex was rushed in the early 1980s for a
film fest, the ceiling scaffolding collapsed killing several workmen
who fell to the orchestra below. Rather than halt construction to
rescue survivors and retrieve the bodies of dead workmen, cement was
poured into the orchestra, entombing the fallen workmen. Some of them
were buried alive in the orchestra. Various ghostly activities were
reported on the site including mysterious sounds, voices and
poltergeist activity. In the late 1990s a group called the Spirit
Questors began to make visits to the film center in an attempt to
contact and appease the souls of the workmen who were killed in the
building. Some of these spirits claimed to have moved on but a few
allegedly remain.

Manila – Ozone Disco – Once there was a disco there and it caught on fire
people tried to get out but people were pushing and panicking so no one
got out. Some people hear disco music in their houses at night and see
faint people dancing and no one can explain how.

Manila – Rizal Park area –Near the Rizal Park in Manila has the angry
spirits of dead Japanese soldiers in the ruins of a building outside of
the park. many Japanese soldiers died in the building when it was
blasted. Reports of a cold presence and menacing feelings.

Muntinlupa – San Jose
Village – An overgrown black bird with powerful
wings can be heard circling the village whenever there’s a pregnant
woman. It’s wings are so powerful that you’ll sometimes feel like its
windy but only on the place where you’re standing at.

Muntinlupa – San Jose
Village – St. Bernadette St. – From 12
midnight onwards, a lot of tricycle drivers have already encountered
the white lady who loves to get a free ride. More often, this lady
would be sitting beside the driver. Other times, a red lady is said to
roam around the area following people who dread to walk this haunted
street at night.

Muntinlupa – San Jose
Village – St. Clemence Street – Another
white lady haunts St. Clemence Street where her hair stands up and
appears to be very angry.

Muntinlupa – San Jose
Village – St. George Street – At St.
George Street you can sometimes hear someone calling you but the voice
is hidden in the tall grasses beside the street.

Muntinlupa – San Jose
Village – St. Joseph – a mysterious
headless priest is said to haunt the playground and the hill beside it.

Muntinlupa – San Jose
Village – St. Peter’s Street – Ghostly
apparitions of people partying near an old cave at St. Peter’s Street
can be seen during unholy hours from 12mn to 3am.

San Juan Greenhills – Resalest
educational center – A principal who haunts the
students and stole money from them, people said that the haunted
principal is a greedy ghost who lives in that school.

When did vampires begin? As with many legends, the exact date of origin is unknown; but evidence of the vampire tale can be found with the ancient Chaldeans in Mesopotamia, near the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, and with Assyrian writings on clay or stone tablets. The land of the Chaldeans is also called the “Ur of the Chaldeans,” which was the original home of Abraham from the Bible.

“Lilith” was a possible vampire from the ancient Hebrew Bible and its interpretations. Although she is described in the book of Isaiah, her roots are more likely in Babylonian demonology. Lilith was a monster who roamed at night taking on the appearance of an owl. She would hunt, seeking to kill newborn children and pregnant women. Lilith was the wife of Adam before there was Adam and Eve, according to tradition; but she was demonized because she refused to obey Adam. (Or to see it from a more liberated viewpoint, she demanded equal rights with Adam). Naturally, she was considered evil for such “radical” desires and became a vampire who eventually attacked the children of Adam and Eve — namely, all human descendants.

References to vampires can be found in many lands, and some scholars believe this indicates that the vampire story developed independently in these various lands and was not passed from one to the other. Such an independently occurring folktale is curious indeed.

References to vampires can be found among the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean such as Egypt, Greece and Rome. The ancient Greeks believed in the strigoe or lamiae, who were monsters who ate children and drank their blood. Lamia, as the mythology goes, was the lover of Zeus; but Zeus’ wife, Hera, fought against her. Lamia was driven insane, and she killed her own offspring. At night, it was said, she hunted other human children to kill as well.

One tale known by both the Greeks and Romans, for example, concerns the wedding of a young man named Menippus. At the wedding a guest, who was a noted philosopher called Apollonius of Tyana, carefully observed the bride, who was said to be beautiful. Apollonius finally accused the wife of being a vampire, and according to the story (as it was later told by a scholar named Philostratus in the first century A.D.) the wife confessed to vampirism. Allegedly she was planning to marry Menippus merely to have him handy as a source of fresh blood to drink.

Vampire tales occurred in ancient China, where the monsters were called kiang shi. In ancient India and Nepal, as well, vampires may have existed — at least in legend. Ancient paintings on the walls of caves depict blood drinking creatures; the Nepalese “Lord of Death” is depicted holding a blood-filled goblet in the form of a human skull standing in a pool of blood. Some of these wall paintings are as old as 3000 B.C., it is believed. Rakshasas are described in the ancient Indian holy writings called the Vedas. These writings (circa 1500 B.C.) depict the Rakshasas (or destroyers) as vampires. There is also a monster in ancient India’s lore which hangs from a tree upside-down, not unlike a bat, and is devoid of its own blood. This creature, called Baital, is in legend a vampire.

Other ancient Asians, such as the Malayans, believed in a type of vampire called the “Penanggalen.” This creature consisted of a human head with entrails that left its body and searched for the blood of others, especially of infants. The creature lived by drinking the victims’ blood.

It is also said that the vampire may have lived in Mexico prior to the arrival of Spanish Conquistadors, according to the renown vampire author Montague Summers whose 1928 book The Vampire — His Kith and Kin is a classic. He further wrote that Arabia knew of the vampire as well. Vampire-like beings appeared in the “Tales of the Arabian Nights” called algul; this was a ghoul which consumed human flesh.

Africa, with its spirit-based religions, may be seen as having legends of vampire-like beings as well. One tribe, the Caffre, held the belief that the dead could return and survive on the blood of the living.

In ancient Peru there were also vampire legends; the canchus were believed to be devil worshipers who sucked the blood of the young.

Thus from ancient times and from a bounty of exotic lands came forth the vampires. It is from these ancient fears about death and the magical, life-sustaining powers of blood that the vampires as we know them today have evolved.

It’s a good news/bad news situation for believers in the 2012 Mayan apocalypse. The good news is that the Mayan “Long Count” calendar may not end on Dec. 21, 2012 (and, by extension, the world may not end along with it). The bad news for prophecy believers? If the calendar doesn’t end in December 2012, no one knows when it actually will – or if it has already.

A new critique, published as a chapter in the new textbook “Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World” (Oxbow Books, 2010), argues that the accepted conversions of dates from Mayan to the modern calendar may be off by as much as 50 or 100 years. That would throw the supposed and overhyped 2012 apocalypse off by decades and cast into doubt the dates of historical Mayan events. (The doomsday worries are based on the fact that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, much as our year ends on Dec. 31.)

The Mayan calendar was converted to today’s Gregorian calendar using a calculation called the GMT constant, named for the last initials of three early Mayanist researchers. Much of the work emphasized dates recovered from colonial documents that were written in the Mayan language in the Latin alphabet, according to the chapter’s author, Gerardo Aldana, University of California, Santa Barbara professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies.

Later, the GMT constant was bolstered by American linguist and anthropologist Floyd Lounsbury, who used data in the Dresden Codex Venus Table, a Mayan calendar and almanac that charts dates relative to the movements of Venus.

“He took the position that his work removed the last obstacle to fully accepting the GMT constant,” Aldana said in a statement. “Others took his work even further, suggesting that he had proven the GMT constant to be correct.”

But according to Aldana, Lounsbury’s evidence is far from irrefutable.

“If the Venus Table cannot be used to prove the FMT as Lounsbury suggests, its acceptance depends on the reliability of the corroborating data,” he said. That historical data, he said, is less reliable than the Table itself, causing the argument for the GMT constant to fall “like a stack of cards.”

Aldana doesn’t have any answers as to what the correct calendar conversion might be, preferring to focus on why the current interpretation may be wrong. Looks like end-of-the-world theorists may need to find another ancient calendar on which to pin their apocalyptic hopes.

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It doesn’t matter whether or not you believe in ghosts, there are some places in which none of us would want to spend a night. These places have well earned their reputations as being so creepy, tragic or mysterious (or all three) that they definitely qualify as “haunted.”

Places like…

#6. Aokigahara Forest
Aokigahara is a woodland at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan that makes The Blair Witch Project forest look like Winnie the Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood. It probably has something to do with all the dead bodies scattered around.

What Niagara Falls is to weddings, Aokigahara is to suicide. How many suicides does it takes for a place to get that reputation? A dozen? Fifty?

More than 500 fucking people have taken their own lives in Aokigahara since the 1950s.

The trend has supposedly started after Seicho Matsumoto published his novel Kuroi Kaiju (Black Sea of Trees) where two of his characters commit suicide there. After that-always eager to prove they are bizarrely susceptible to suggestion-hundreds of Japanese people have hanged themselves among the countless trees of the Aokigahara forest, which is reportedly so thick that even in high noon it’s not hard to find places completely surrounded by darkness.

Besides bodies and homemade nooses, the area is littered with signs displaying such uplifting messages like “Life is a precious thing! Please reconsider!” or “Think of your family!”

In the 70s, the problem got national attention and the Japanese government began doing annual sweeps of the forest in search of bodies. In 2002, they found 78. But who knows how many they missed? In all likelihood there probably is a hanged person somewhere in Aokigahara on any given day. You can see some of them here. WARNING, NSFS (Not Safe For Soul).

By the way, if an entire dark forest full of hanged corpses wasn’t bad enough, a few years ago some people noticed that a lot of the dead in Aokigahara probably had cash or jewelry on them. Thus began the proud Japanese tradition of Aokigahara Scavenging where people are running around the Death Forest, looking for dead guys to loot.

#5. The Overtoun Bridge
Located near Scotland’s charming little village of Milton in the peaceful burgh of Dumbarton, the Overtoun Bridge is a local arch construction where no human beings have ever died in any suspicious circumstances whatsoever over the last few decades.

However, during that span, for reasons we can’t begin to possibly understand, hundreds and hundreds of dogs have killed themselves there. It appears that dogs have been plunging off of Overtoun since the early 60s, at a rate of one animal a month… bringing the total number today to around 600 mutts, who for some reason, decided to end it all.

And we’re not talking about a series of unfortunate accidents that could have been avoided with a simple guard rail. People who actually witnessed the reported dogs willingly climbing the parapet wall and leaping to their doom with dumbass doggy grins on their faces. Whether they were crying blood remains to be confirmed.

Theories on why is this happening have been all over the place, from particularly aromatic rodents to a simple stream of bizarre coincidences. We call bullshit on both seeing as–to paraphrase Ian Fleming–“Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action and over 600 is clearly the work of an ancient Sumerian demon or some shit.”

#4. Winchester Mystery House
In San Jose there is this house. It is a gigantic, sprawling 160-room complex designed like a maze, with mile-long hallways, secret passages, dead ends, doors opening to blank walls and staircases leading to the ceiling.

It’s the work of Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune. In the late 19th century, deeply saddened over the death of her husband and daughter, she visited a Boston medium who told her she was haunted by the spirits of all the victims of Winchester rifles. She needed to make peace with them by… always be building a house. As in, never stop building a house, or else she will die. What a nice thing to say to someone who has just lost her family. There is no way this could end with Sarah building a real life version of the Addams Family household.

In 1884, Winchester started construction of her new San Jose mansion, which has gone on non-stop for 38 years right until her death. Despite modern contractors taking about that much time to put in the wooden paneling in your kitchen, the Winchester mansion eventually grew so big you could, in all seriousness, get lost in it. And getting lost was the idea, the crazy twists and turns and dead ends were intended to confuse the ghosts. Sarah was kind of a jerk like that.

But pissing off vengeful spirits was just one of the many architectural choices for the mansion. The entire Winchester Mystery House was decorated with a constant spiderweb motif–which Sarah believed had some spiritual meaning–and everything from the hooks on the walls to candle holders has been arranged around the number 13, supposedly for good luck. Yeah… for someone trying to free herself from ghosts, Winchester did everything but sacrifice a baby goat to Satan to assure her house will be haunted.

#3. The Sedlec Ossuary
Remember when we said Aokigahara was the Niagara falls of suicide? Well, for centuries the abbot in the small Czech town of Sedlec has been the Niagara Falls for dead people, regardless of cause of death. Ever since someone sprinkled soil from the Holy Land on the local cemetery in the 13th century, people from all over Europe started demanding to be buried there and the Sedlec graveyard kept growing until 1870, when the priests decided to finally do something about all those surplus bones lying around. Something insane.

Today, the Sedlec Ossuary is a chapel famous for being decorated with tens of thousands of human bones. This macabre style of interior design was the work of Czech woodcarver Frantisek Rint who, for some reason, was hired to organize the church’s extensive skeleton collection. The results were huge mounds of human remains in the four corners of the chapel, a terrifying chandelier built from every bone in the human body, and a massive skull coat of arms adorning the entrance.

We realize this is the Czech Republic and all, but it has been 27 years, surely Poltergeist was released out there already. Like, maybe last year or something? Why are they still playing with human bones as if they were Satan’s Lego blocks and making them sit through Mass every single day for almost 140 years now? On the Tempting Fate scale, the only thing worse would be to start using some of the skulls as ceremonial mugs or chamber pots.

At this point, does it really surprise anyone that the church became the inspiration for Dr. Satan’s lair in the Rob Zombie movie House of 1000 Corpses?

#2. San Zhi Resort
What do you get when you cross a series of abandoned, rusting, futuristic UFO-shaped buildings with a series of mysterious deaths covered up by the government? How about the ghost town-slash-tourist resort of San Zhi, located just outside Taipei and inside your worst nightmares.

The exclusive San Zhi resort in Taiwan was supposed to be the destination for bored, rich folk who always wondered what it would be like to live inside an over-sized hockey puck. Construction of Pod City started around the 80s but was quickly shut down after a series of mysterious on-site fatal accidents… or it could have been due to Godzilla attacks for all we know. There is actually very little official information on San Zhi. We can’t even confirm how many people died there or if they screamed something about eyeless children eating their souls. The whole thing is shrouded in secrecy.

Currently, most of the information on the complex comes from the locals who–what a surprise–refuse to go near the damn thing. And thus the abandoned 90 pods just stand there, waiting for anyone foolish enough to wander in.

Wait a second… abandoned resort town in the middle of nowhere, mysterious deaths, lack of any official information… where have we seen this before?

#1. Prypiat
A whole lot of you just got deja vu looking at the above picture. Specifically, those of you who have played Call of Duty 4, as there is an entire level that takes place there. If you thought the idea of a completely silent, abandoned, radioactive city was typical video game apocalyptic fantasy, you were wrong.

Prypiat is in the northern Ukraine and once housed the workers and scientists of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant. Founded in the 70s, it held as many as 50,000 people. Then in 1986, according to a footnote in the official Soviet records, there was a small malfunction in the Chernobyl reactor, so for safety reasons the city was evacuated.

Since then, Prypiat has been desolated, its buildings decaying, the giant Ferris Wheel just standing there all alone with nobody to ride it. The city actually had an entire amusement park for the families of the Chernobyl employees. Because when you are living next to a nuclear reactor which was outdated even by 1986 Soviet standards, the only thing on your mind is bumper cars.

The city is located in what is known as the Zone of Alienation, the 30-kilometer radius directly affected by the Chernobyl “minor technical difficulty” over 20 years ago. Despite that, Prypiat is now opened to the public because the radiation levels have apparently went down significantly over the years. We guess we have a different view on radiation than the government of Ukraine. They obviously have a scale for it, while we consider any radiation a very bad thing.

Aside from the inherent risk of getting bit by a radioactive snail and becoming the lamest superhero ever, there is another reason why you will never see us among the tourists occasionally visiting Prypiat.

The fucking nursery. We told you this was a place built for families and wouldn’t you know it, they have a nursery, which according to certain claims is currently paved with baby shoes and abandoned dolls. So, Prypiat is basically an abandoned radioactive ghost Soviet baby amusement park.